NOTABILIA METEOBOLOGICA.— 1859. 



While 1859, with all its good and evil, is 

 fresh in our recollections, it will be inte- 

 resting to note, as briefly as possible, a few 

 of the salient points that have distin- 

 guished it from other years. 



1. Every one knows it has been a very 

 warm year. There was no winter in 

 1858-9, except a sharp touch of king frost 

 at the beginning, in the month of Novem- 

 ber of the former year. March was warm, 

 but ended with two severe days, when 

 abundant snow fell and lay on the ground. 

 This heralded a cold spring with easterly 

 wind ; then a hot summer, most unusually 

 sultry and oppressive in July. The autumn 

 was marked, first, by very fluctuating wea- 

 ther, a large fall of rain, and frequent ex- 

 hibitions of splendid aurora ; then, with 

 the latter weeks of October, began a 

 period of cold, which lasted nearly to the 

 end of the year. The frost of December 

 was exceedingly severe for that month ; for 

 six days the thermometer did not rise 

 above freezing, even during the warmest 

 part of the day. 



2. If we measure the summer as ex- 

 tending from the last frost in the air at 



night in spring to the first in autumn, it 

 lasted in 1859 from 23rd April to 22nd 

 October. It is generally much colder at 

 night on the grass ; and if we measure it 

 by grass fronts, it extended from 9th May 

 to 21st October. For twenty-two weeks 

 there was no frost on the grass at night. 

 This is about the same period as in 1858 ; 

 but, in 1857, this exception lasted twenty 

 weeks, aud in 1856 only fourteen. 



3. The year was remarkable for its 

 severe storms and high winds. It has 

 been a heavy year to the underwriters at 

 Lloyds' ; their pecuniary suffering is an 

 index of death and distress to the mariner. 

 The gales of October 26, which devastated 

 the South Devon Railway, and that of the 

 commencement of November, under which 

 the "Royal Charter" perished, will long 

 be remembered. Many of us will recall 

 .the tremendous thunder-storm of Satur- 

 day, the 2nd of July, which came on be- 

 tween eight and nine o'clock at night, and 

 lasted more than four hours. It was fol- 

 lowed by three weeks of intensely hot 

 weather. 



Stoke Newington. J. .T. Fox. 



THE WOOD LEOPAED-MOTH, 



A DESTROYER OE APPLE AND PEAR TREES. 



On the 9th of September, 1859, 1 observed 

 one of my young pear-trees broken off just 

 below the head, where the stem was about 

 two inches and a half in diameter. I at 

 once suspected the cause ; and, upon ex- 

 amination, found that it was owing to the 

 boring of the grub of the moth called 

 Zeuzera sesculi, which had eaten a tunnel 



of more than a quarter of an inch diameter 

 quite round the stem, deviating, I believe, 

 in this instance from the usual instinct of 

 its family, which rarely guides them to 

 proceed so far in a horizontal direction as 

 to endanger their own safety, their course 

 being generally in an upward direction, by 



which they avoid the entrance of rain into 

 the cavity which they form, and do not 

 render the tree so liable to be broken off 

 by storms as when bored horizontally. 

 Some years ago, I found one of these 

 grubs in the branch of an apple-tree by 

 noticing the "sawdust" and excrement 

 voided by it ; and, having cut off the 

 branch, kept it in moist earth until the 

 grub had become a chrysalis, when I 

 placed it in a cage, and in due time the 

 moth was hatched. 



The grub and moth are both figured 

 by Mr. Curtis in " British Entomology" 

 (Vol. xvi., No. 722). The grub is yellow, 

 regularly covered with black spots, the 

 head and tail being black or very dark 

 chestmit, about two inches long. The 

 moth is whitish, sprinkled all over with 

 purple or nearly black spots ; the abdo- 

 men black, with white bands ; thorax 

 marked with three black spots on each 

 side. 



Mr. Curtis states that ho has been 

 much puzzled to know how such large 

 moths turned in their burrows, and made 



